A Good Man
by KPHOENIX
Summary: Some Musing Onslaught might have inspired in Jean


Don't own any of these characters.. ain't making no money…Just some musing I though Onslaught would have prompted in Jean Grey. Enjoy. 

Professor Charles Xavier, my foster father, teacher, mentor, needs me. In the past, that would have meant enough to make me come running like a schoolgirl from class. I trusted him. Respected him. Honored him. He was my foster father; I a trusting child. As I became a woman with a husband I remained in so many ways still under his guidance. His watchful care. His supervision. Now knowing how he felt about me all those things, from the times he read me bedtime stories as a little girl to the dance I shared with him on my wedding day seem tainted. Onslaught showed me, and all of us, the worst side of him. Yet the greatest disillusionment for me was the thrust of sin on my innocent adoration of a man who I believed perfect. Who I believed had shared his entire mind and soul with mind due to our common psychic gifts. People rarely surprise me. My gift has opened the goodness and blackness of most people's hearts to me so fully that I suppose part of the shock came from my erroneous belief that as a telepath I can know everything about everybody. I knew many of the others had lusted after me. Some have even loved. Hank and Bobby were half teasing way back when, in those innocent years. Warren was more serious. But even that was long ago. They are now more like big brothers.

But I knew their little secrets. Logan. He still carries that torch. How could I not know? He doesn't even seem to try to hide it, even in front of Scott. 

But you, Professor? It is so hard to accept him as a mere man with the same weaknesses we all carry, no different except in his greater ability to hide his evil thoughts from me because he shares my gifts of the mind. He is a hypocrite, just as Onslaught said. I want to be angry. Indignant. I want to ask him how he could let me down like that. But I can't. I don't judge Logan by those standards, and is what Logan has felt so different? Yet I expect those feelings from a man I know to be given to his passions rather than his reason. Logan possesses intellect, but he is not ruled by it. I even welcome it when Logan looks at me in that oh so physical, animal, lustful way. I don't feel betrayed. If anything I feel secretly flattered despite all my feigned indignation. And what does my unwillingness to admit even the basic lust, saying nothing of the deeper feelings, I feel for Logan say of me? What except that I also don't judge myself by those standards. If that is so, I too am a hypocrite. How dare I expect Charles Xavier to live by rules I don't, can't live by myself? 

When I think of the secret fantasies and daydreams I have entertained about my unrequited lover, of how many times when in Scott's loving, devoted, trusting arms I have closed my eyes and savored hidden thoughts of Logan that I pray through our rapport my beloved doesn't see, of how I tell Logan with words I love Scott and it can never be, but lead him on with my body, how can I judge my mentor for hiding a secret desire of his own? He is just a man, as I am just a woman. Why did I expect him to be better? 

And yet I wonder… How old was I when it started? 20? 19? 18? Younger? I remember sitting in his lap as a child looking up to him, believing he could do anything because he made me better. Being so happy when he told me I was special. I loved him with a child's affection, and I felt I owed him everything for giving me back the life I lost when Annie died. I want to believe in him like that again. I am trying. I tell myself lust is merely a fact of nature, and he never acted on it. It should not interfere with my gratitude for he is still responsible for giving me back my life and for helping me be the person I have become. Yet it does. Dear Heaven I was only a child and he wanted me in a way…

Even though I know the sin in my own heart it is such a struggle to forgive him. Yet I must. Onslaught was right. The Professor, Scott, me. . hypocrites all. And I must stop judging. I judged Scott so harshly for his stray thoughts of Betsy. Why? Not really for his mental sin but for my own dark jealousy. How much worse am I? Scott's feelings for Betsy were never deeper than his eyes would take him. Physical only. Meat in front of a hungry dog. She never touched his heart and I knew that. Logan has pierced my soul as surely as if he had stabbed me in the heart with those claws of his. When he looks at me, I do respond physically. Oh there is lust. But I also respond mentally and spiritually. There is also love. That does not mean I could ever stop loving Scott. And, like the professor, I can claim in my defense I never really acted on it. Except in Genosha. But that was just a kiss, wasn't it? No. I can't lie to myself like that. I may only give my body to Scott, but there are ways of joining to a person with only the slightest touch. That kiss meant as much to my heart and soul as making love would have been. But we will never make love in that other way. He is my Heathcliff. The match to my dark and evil passions. A love that I will bury and be buried with, without consummating.

I bury these passions because the Dark Phoenix showed me what they are capable of causing. Just like the Professor buried his. Was the Dark Phoenix so different from Onslaught? I can claim she was not me, but she was more me than Onslaught was the Professor. She drew on my tainted soul even when she destroyed millions of innocents in the rapturous destruction of a star, as beautiful as it was terrible. No wonder Scott was frightened when I put on that costume. I frighten myself. 

Yet I wear it anyway. Why? Perhaps I am trying to confess. Learning to be honest with myself. Why not? What am I really protecting except my self image? I can't claim to be protecting my marriage, or Scott. Scott and I are bonded in mind like no one else. Surely, even if he may blind himself to it, he knows. What I really am inside.. my feelings for Logan. He knows. Oh God, to think he knows. Yes, he knows. I know in his heart he does, he must, and I have hurt him. To think that brings tears to my eyes. How dare I to have ever chided him over Betsy. I am so much worse. So much worse. 

But what good does that do? It is time to forgive and admit to myself that I am only a woman as they are only men. While we try to be better, all of us are only and irrevocably human. And I love them all, and want to free us from these issues of jealousy and pain. I want us all to care about each other in a way that will never be tainted. I want to believe in the Professor, myself, and the dream again. To do that I must get beyond all this. In our hearts and mind we have all fallen, but we can't simply stay down in the mud. We can still reach for the ideal even if none of us can achieve it. Yes, he still needs me. And I will still come. Deep in my heart if I am to go on believing myself a good woman despite my shortcomings, I must grant that grace and forgiveness to others. I must believe that, in the end, despite what I have learned about him, Charles Xavier is a good man. 


End file.
